Conventional software development is traditionally performed using solutions that rely upon the development of functional requirements or specifications (hereafter “requirements”) in order to identify features or functions that should be built or developed into a computer program or application. Typically, disparate computer software, programs, or applications (hereafter “applications”) are often used in conventional techniques to provide different types of features or functions, such as requirements definition, change management, quality control, analysis, business intelligence, or reporting. Given the different types of solutions used, which are typically developed by different organizations or companies, the ability to use cross-product data is limited and often restrictive.
Companies, business, or organizations, large and small, often must rely upon the use of third party applications and development tools in order to build complex software projects. Often a single vendor or provider does not offer all of the tools that are required for a given project. However, when used together, different vendor applications may require extensive integration, development of custom source code in order to integrate applications together using software development kits, application programming interfaces (hereafter “APIs”), or other techniques. Further, data transferred between these applications often requires frequent development of source code in order for data to be used between different products and platforms. The use of proprietary formats to describe common data elements in different products discourages integration, raises project development times, increases project development costs, and is labor-intensive.
Thus, what is needed is a solution for enabling cross-product data sharing, analysis, and reporting for software development applications without the limitations of conventional techniques.